


The Starlight Night

by sinnabonka



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley Created the Stars (Good Omens), Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 20:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20802812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinnabonka/pseuds/sinnabonka
Summary: “Did you make all of them?”“Don’t be ridiculous.” Crowley frowns. “It’s not the work for one, even a powerful being.”He looks at Aziraphale and smiles.The angel points at random star: “What is its name?”“Deneb. When I was creating it, I had no idea I’ll be watching it from Earth.” He purses his lip. “Neither did I think that I would be watching it as a demon, covered in tartan blanket with an angel by my side.”





	The Starlight Night

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there!  
I hope you liked this story, it left me brokenhearted and in tears in the middle of the night.  
Inspired by art of amazing @scaramacaistuff  
https://scaramacaisstuff.tumblr.com/post/187927193880/for-the-first-time-crowley-told-aziraphale-about
> 
> And I ended up drawing something for this piece myself !  
https://sinnabonka.tumblr.com/post/187999296901/the-starlight-night-by-sinnabonka-the-artwork

Aziraphale sits in a big cozy armchair with a book, all wrapped in a tartan blanket, reaches for the mug and notices that his cocoa is ice cold. _He did it again, didn’t he?_ The angel puts the book aside and takes his tiny reading glasses off. He doesn’t need them, but who said Crowley is the only one allowed to have all the fun and look nifty?

Speaking of that, he didn’t notice the demon leaving. He does that often these days – leaves the house in the middle of the night without a single word, comes back at first light, exhausted and in a bad mood, doesn’t answer any questions, tiredly smiles at the angel and assures him everything’s fine. But it is not. Aziraphale senses it even from a different room, but Crowley is an adult demon himself, if he doesn’t want to speak about something, he simply doesn’t.

Aziraphale walks to the kitchen, heating the cocoa in the cup with a little miracle on the go, gets some cinnamon from the condiment box, softly smiles and puts it into his already warm beverage. He enjoys the fragrance of it and looks out through the window onto a starry sky above the lake.

There’s a bright flash on the beach. The light comes on, shines for a short moment and goes out. Concerned and certain it has something to do with missing Crowley, the angel walks out the back door and goes down the steep path leading to the lakeside.

He finds Crowley sitting on the log washed back in by tide, playing with a lighter. Serpent doesn’t notice Aziraphale approaching him, so jumps up, when a warm hand gently lands onto his shoulder.

“Didn’t mean to scare you, love.” Aziraphale takes his hand back and sits down next to Crowley.

“Naaah, you didn’t ssscare…” Crowley forces himself to smile. “…just sssurprised a little.”

The angel answers him with his warmest smile. He feels Crowley is in pain, but he wouldn’t dare to ask. Crowley waited six thousand years for him, so it feels fair to at least give him all the time he needs now. They sit in that particular type of midnight silence, when it feels quiet, even though the air is filled with thousands of different sounds. Despite the lights being off in every household in the area, the world is alive. All the crickets, nocturnal birds and animals, everything generates the sound.

Spending most of the night inside the cottage, Aziraphale completely forgets that life goes on when the lights are turned out. And now he has his moment and appreciates the night.

“I see why you’ve been coming here a lot lately,” whispers angel, trying not to scare the warm feeling off. “This place is beautiful.”

Crowley sighs and rolls his eyes, Aziraphale can see it, as he doesn’t wear glasses here anymore.

“It’s not _the place_ I admire.” Crowley tilts his head back and breathes out.

“Oh.” Aziraphale smiles and quotes: _“Look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air_…”

They sit there quietly for some time, long enough for Aziraphale to start shivering. He snaps his fingers and a tartan blanket appears on his lap. The angel moves closer to Crowley and wraps them both, presses himself to Crowley and is terrified realizing how cold the serpent is. Coldblooded as it is.

“We should go home, dear.” Aziraphale finds Crowley’s hand under the blanket and takes it. “You are freezing! Maybe we can do stargazing from our porch. We’ll take some warm clothes, I’ll fetch some sweet tea, maybe Irish coffee, if you feel like it.”

“Mhm.” Nods Crowley, eyes still on the sky.

At this moment Aziraphale notices something that makes his heart sink; he sees tears in those serpent eyes. Crowley blinks them away and turns his face to the angel.

“What is it, dear?” asks Aziraphale with the softest whisper. “What’s bothering you? How can I help?”

“Everything’s fine.” Crowley shrugs and squeezes the angel’s hand. “I just… I’ve been thinking a lot lately. You know, about the past.” He purses his lips. “About the future as well.”

“Heaven and Hell can’t hurt us anymore.”

Crowley is definitely going to say something, but the words are stuck in his throat like a fish bone; he takes a deep breath and turns toward the sky. His eyes are not fully snake now, they are more human then Aziraphale has ever had a chance to see. In the darkness they look brownish, not the usual golden.

“I’ve been thinking mostly about me ruining everything I ever cared about.” He bites his bottom lip. “I’ve failed Heaven once, I now have failed Hell. How long will it take me to fail you?”

“Oh, you never will.” Aziraphale chuckles. “You had 6000 years for that, didn’t you? If you were meant to ruin things with me, you had millennia – literally – to screw things up.”

“With Heaven and Hell, it wasn’t so quick either.”

Willing to change the subject, Aziraphale askes with a true curiosity: “You never told me about your life before your…fall, how was it? What was your life in Heaven like?”

“Some of this, some of that, you know.” Crowley’s face clenches up for the memories, but he forces himself to go on. It’s been a long time him keeping it all to himself; what could be a better moment to open up and deal with the past, than them starting to build their future? So he goes on: “You wouldn’t remember my name, Gabriel took good care to erase it from everybody’s minds.”

“Did we know each other back then?”

“No, Angel. I wasn’t around then, mostly away on business.”

“What was the business?"

Crowley exhales and takes his hand out from underneath the blanket and point to the sky.

“Vega, Altair.” He glances into the night sky and smiles. “Good old friend Algol, the Demon Star. I had huge fun creating that one.”

Aziraphale follows the movement of the demon’s hand with his eyes. Stars seem to be shining brighter as Crowley points his finger at them. For a single moment the angel thinks that Crowley is actually touching them with his fingertips, gently pressing white keys on a black piano.

And then the vision goes away.

“Did you make all of them?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Crowley frowns. “It’s not the work for one, even a powerful being.”

He looks at Aziraphale and smiles.

The angel points at random star: “What is its name?”

“Deneb. When I was creating it, I had no idea I’ll be watching it from Earth.” He purses his lip. “Neither did I think that I would be watching it as a demon, covered in tartan blanket with an angel by my side.”

“You make it sound sad, dear.” Aziraphale watches into the darkness above. “Can you still do it?”

Crowley shrugs: “Never tried after landing in Hell. Never thought of that, actually. But I am _a demon_, demons are not creators. Demons are not capable of _creating things_, we are better with destruction.”

“Not all the demons were angels once.” Aziraphale gently caresses Crowley on his cheek. “You are not like the others, look at yourself. At least you care about humanity, that should mean something. You don’t belong to Hell anymore.”

“I don’t belong anywhere.” Crowley gives him a sad smile.

“You are so wrong, dear.” Aziraphale cups his face and looks in his eyes. “You belong to me. Right here in my arms. And if there is a demon capable of creating things in this world, it’s you.”

Crowley blinks fast, like a person who wants to wake up really quickly. But the dream does not come to an end. He still feels warm hands on his face, still feels the blanket on his shoulders. He still can’t believe, that he – Crowley, former Crawley – is worthy, has a value, is dear to someone.

And not just someone, but _an angel,_ and not any angel, but a _special one_.

He melts, like butter on a hot summer day and he can’t help it. They’ve said things to each other already, plenty of times, but it’s now that Crowley actually believes Aziraphale means it.

The heat growing in his chest gets bigger, warms both of them.

“Crowley, your hands...” Whispers Aziraphale with trembling voice.

It sounds like an echo; the demon actually is not aware he hears anything, but the angel looks worried and so he comes down to earth. The smile on his face fades. Crowley looks down and gasps.

_Well, that’s a thing_, he thinks while examining his hands. They are warm, that is a thing itself. But what scared his angel is the light, coming from his palms. He knows what that glowing means; what he doesn’t know is why it came back.

“What is it, dear?” Aziraphale gets up, the blanket falls on the ground.

“It is the proof that maybe you are not completely wrong.” Crowley smiles in disbelief, still looking at his hands. He makes a fist and opens his hand back, slowly, watching the tiny hall of light appear.

“Is that…?” Aziraphale drops his jaw and moves his look to Crowley’s face. He sees a teardrop slowly going down his cheek, as he gets up. Their eyes meet and the demon nods.

The whole world is now in Crowley’s hands and he cries, like a wayfarer returning home after an exhaustingly long journey. He feels the pulses coming from the ball of white fire. It’s spinning, gradually growing to the size of an apple. Crowley feels the energy coming from his body into this tiny (as for now) creation. But he doesn’t feel empty, quite the opposite; he feels full of life, to the brim.

Crowley holds out both his hands to the angel and smiles: “You can touch it.”

“Are you sure?” Aziraphale watches, captivated by how careful all Crowley’s movements are. He doesn’t hear the answer, but yet reaches out to the ball of light and gently touches it with his fingertips. It’s hard to call it a touch, as the ball is composed of pure light. It tickles.

The star feels warm, feels alive. Millions of particles staying in constant motion.

Aziraphale blinks and a single tear falls.

“It’s time for it to go. It is ready.” Crowley wipes away his tears.

He takes a final good look at the star and then lifts his hand in the air and gently pushes the lightball away. It slowly floats up towards the night sky, leaving a white trace behind.

Crowley stumbles and falls down back on the log. Aziraphale runs to him and gently lifts his head by the chin, looks at him closely. The demon’s hands stop glowing, but the rest of the light still is seen in his irises.

Crowley slowly breathes in and out and smiles tiredly: “I am alright, angel, don’t worry.”

“Did you just?” Aziraphale is out of words, and that’s a rare thing. “What you’ve done now… _That was beautiful_, Crowley. But how?”

“Old habits die hard, I guess.” Crowley shrugs and closes his eyes. “Sit down with me, angel.”

Aziraphale does as he is asked to. He reaches out for the blanket and wraps them up one more time. It doesn’t feel like cold night anymore, but somehow, he is sure this what needs to be done.

Crowley puts his head onto the angel’s shoulder and in a few seconds his breath is calm and even. When the angel thinks he is asleep, the serpent suddenly speaks, without opening his eyes.

“Its name is Angelus Corde. _And it’s all yours_.”

Aziraphale smiles and grants him a gentle kiss on the temple. He raises his gaze to the sky and sees a little star, which shines much brighter than the rest and definitely was not there even a minute ago. He stares at it all night, right up to the moment when the first sunlight comes out.

He brings Crowley home at dawn, lets him sleep, because that’s definitely what he needs right now. Walks to the kitchen and takes a sip of his – again – cold cocoa. And looks out the window. The world is awake, all the wheels are turning again. The sky is clear and blue.

He can’t see the star now, but he knows that it is still there. It always will be there, same as love – in the angel’s heart.

Aziraphale gets back to his book, but never actually starts reading that day, as his thoughts go back to the soft white light of the newborn star, to the golden glow of Crowley’s hands. But mostly he is thinking about the miracle of creation and how some artworks are better viewed from a distance.

**Author's Note:**

> You can help a struggling author out by buying a coffee https://ko-fi.com/sinnabonka


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